Rookwood Cemetery
Rookwood Cemetery (officially named Rookwood Necropolis) is the largest necropolis in the Southern Hemisphere, located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Rookwood is a suburb, close to Lidcombe railway station about 17 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district. Rookwood Cemetery is divided into denominational and operational areas with individual offices, staff, and equipment to run different parts of the entire area. The cemetery is now managed by five denominational Trusts, each of which is responsible for the care and maintenance of a number of burial sections catering to various ethnic and cultural groups within the community. The following individual Trusts manage the cemetery on behalf of the NSW State Government: Anglican & General Cemetery Trusts, the Catholic Cemeteries Board, The Independent Cemetery Trust, Jewish Cemetery, Muslim Cemetery Trust, and, importantly, The NSW Cremation Company, which founded and operates The Rookwood Crematorium, the oldest operating crematorium in the country. The NSW Cremation Company is the only private company operating a 'cemetery' section within the necropolis grounds, today the company is part of the Invocare company. Rookwood also contains a number of memorial shrines including those dedicated to victims of the Holocaust and to members of the merchant marine killed in wartime. The Sydney War Cemetery is located in the eastern section of the necropolis. The Circle of Love is a shrine dedicated to stillborn children or those who died in young infancy. It is estimated that approximately one million people have been buried at Rookwood, which covers an area of over 300 hectares. The "Friends of Rookwood Inc" is a voluntary organisation dedicated to preserving the site. As the largest Victorian era cemetery still in operation in the world, Rookwood is of significant national and historical importance. Some older sections of Rookwood are overgrown with a riot of plants, early horticultural plants, some now large trees or groves, as well as an interesting array of remnant indigenous flora. This results in quite an eclectic mix of flora to be found within the necropolis. The Serpentine Canal within the Anglican section was restored in recent years, repairing and replacing ornamentation, landscaping and vegetation over 31 hectares of the cemetery. History In 1818, Governor Lachlan Macquarie had Sydney's main burial ground established near the town's brickworks. By the 1840s, the Devonshire Street Cemetery was close to being full so another larger site was needed. A location near Randwick was chosen but abandoned in 1859 without ever being used due to complaints from local residents and churches. In Australia, as in Europe, there was an increasing trend to move burial sites outside of the cities for practical, hygienic and other more aesthetic purposes. With a railway line having been completed to Parramatta in 1856, it was decided to locate the new cemetery at a point on the line. Several sites were surveyed and found to be inappropriate. However, in 1862 the government purchased 80 hectares of land at Haslem's Creek from the estate of Edward Cohen. Cohen's land had previously formed part of a larger parcel known as "Hyde Park" that had been given to the magistrate and parliamentarian Henry Grattan Douglas in 1833 and subsequently leased out. The site was approved due to its relative isolation and proximity to the railway line. The cemetery was then divided into sections for the various denominations according to their numbers in the 1861 census. The Church of England section was 21 hectares, the Catholics were allocated 14 hectares and a non-denominational area of 23 hectares was also established. The Necropolis Act came into force on 1 January 1868 and the cemetery was officially opened. By 1879, more land was needed and the remaining 233 hectares of the former "Hyde Park" were then purchased. By the 1890s the cemetery was home to several buildings including the St Michael the Archangel Chapel and various cottages for section managers and sextons. Originally known simply as the Necropolis (meaning "City of the Dead"), local residents lobbied officials to have the name of their village changed from Haslem's Creek due to its association with the cemetery. In 1879 the villagers got their wish and the area's name was changed to Rookwood, however before long the Necropolis was also being referred to by that name. The settlement of Rookwood changed its name to Lidcombe (a combination of two mayors names, Lidbury and Larcombe - Larcombe was also a monumental stonemason whose business exists to this day) in 1913. The cemetery retained the name Rookwood. The name Rookwood is most likely an accidental or deliberate corruption of the name Brookwood Cemetery and its associated railway station. At the time of Rookwood's opening, Brookwood Cemetery, located in Brookwood, Surrey, England, was one of the largest cemeteries in the world. It is less likely, however far more romantic, that, as claimed by some sources, Rookwood was named after William Harrison Ainsworth's novel Rookwood, written in 1834. Railway line Rookwood was served by a rail spur from the main line from 1867 until 1948. Mortuary stations served each of the three sections of the necropolis, with a fourth at the main junction and a fifth on Regent Street adjacent to Sydney Central Station. The railway line construction began in November 1864 and from 1 January 1865, trains began their run into the cemetery. It stopped at prearranged stations on the journey from central Sydney in order to pick up mourners and coffins. Trains ran at 9.30am and 3pm. The trains that carried the mourners were known as 'unimproved Redferns'Friends of Rookwood (2002) A Rookwood Ramble (book). A short self guided walking tour, NSW. There were two types of Hearse carriages used for the procession. One consisted of a four-wheeled van that carried up to 10 coffins on its upper and lower shelves. Each of these shelves was designed so it could open onto the platform. There were also eight-wheeled vans that could hold 30 coffins. Both of these vehicles were attached the back of the train for transporting to the cemetery. At the terminus inside the cemetery the coffins were unloaded using 'wheeled hand-propelled litters'Ochert, M.S. (1998) The Mortuary Station to Rookwood in Locality, 9 (2) pp.23-26. The rail line was used to convey funeral parties to Rookwood until 1948 when the expanded use of processions by road made it obsolete. The stations were offered to the Joint Committee of Necropolis Trustees for the price of £1 but due to maintenance costs the offer was rejected and the platforms within the cemetery were demolished. Cemetery Station No. 1State Rail Authority of New South Wales Archives Section, How & Why of Station Names: meanings and origins..., Second Edition, 1982, State Rail Authority of New South Wales at the head of the rail spur was sold to Reverend Buckle for £100 in 1951 and was moved to Canberra in 1957 to become the All Saints Church, Canberra.All Saints Church information Cultural references Rookwood Cemetery gave rise to the phrase "crook as Rookwood", meaning chronically ill, as "crook" is Australian slang for being unwell. A 2005 novel uses the phrase as its title.[http://www.harpercollins.com.au/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0732266378 Novel published 2005: Crook as Rookwood] Notable inhabitants * John Gowing, co-founder of Gowings store * Kenneth Slessor, poet * James Toohey, brewer * Jimmy Governor, outlaw * Peter Dodds McCormick, songwriter ("Advance Australia Fair") * Louisa Lawson, suffragette * Lilian Fowler, Australia's first female mayor * Bea Miles, well-known Sydney eccentric * Jack Lang, former Premier of New South Wales * Joseph Cahill, former Premier of New South Wales * David Jones, founder of David Jones stores * John Fairfax, newspaper proprietor * Abe Saffron, Sydney businessman and "underworld figure" * Jacob Pitman, advocate of shorthand (whose epitaph is written phonetically) * Sally Anne Huckstep, Sydney underworld figure, the(sydney)magazine, Sydney Morning Herald, 28.2.08, p.72 * Three Victoria Cross recipients: :*Sergeant John Paton, awarded in Indian Mutiny :*Captain Richard Been Stannard, Royal Naval Reserve, awarded in Norway campaign, World War II (cremated) :*Sergeant John Woods Whittle, awarded in World War I. War Graves As at 1 January 2013, Rookwood Necropolis contains the graves of a total 680 Commonwealth service personnel that are registered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, over 400 from World War I and over 260 from World War II, besides 3 Dutch war graves.http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/2022914/ROOKWOOD%20NECROPOLIS%20,SYDNEY CWGC Cemetery Report. The Commission also record 132 Commonwealth service personnel of World War II were cremated at Rookwood Crematorium.http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/2090611/ROOKWOOD%20CREMATORIUM,%20SYDNEY CWGC Cemetery Report. Chapels Image:Rookwood Anglican 1.JPG|St Michael the Archangel Catholic Chapel Image:Rookwood Anglican 2.JPG|Anglican Chapel Image:Rookwood Catholic 1.JPG|Mausoleum of the Resurrection Catholic Chapel Image:Rookwood Mary, Mother of Mercy Chapel.JPG|Mary, Mother of Mercy Catholic Chapel Image:Rookwood Sacred Heart Chapel.JPG|Sacred Heart Chapel Catholic Chapel Image:Rookwood Greek Orthodox Church.JPG|St Athanasios Greek Orthodox Church Image:Rookwood Chinese Temple.JPG|Chinese Temple Image:Rookwood Islamic Monument.JPG|Rookwood Islamic Monument Monuments and Memorials Image:Rookwood 1.JPG|Old Chinese monument Image:Rookwood Armenian Memorial.JPG|Armenian Memorial Image:Rookwood Russian Memorial.JPG|Russian Memorial Image:Rookwood Russian Memorial 2.JPG|Russian Memorial Image:Rookwood Ukranian Orthodox Memorial.JPG|Ukrainian Catholic Priest Vault Image:Rookwood Cemetery 1.JPG|Crown of Thorns Altar Image:Rookwood Cemetery 4.JPG|Jewish Memorial Image:Rookwood Cemetery 5.JPG|Jewish Memorial Image:Rookwood Garden of Remembrance.JPG|Garden of Remembrance Image:Rookwood Garden of Remembrance 2.JPG|Garden of Remembrance Image:Rookwood Garden of Remembrance 3.JPG|Garden of Remembrance Image:Rookwood Garden of Remembrance 4.JPG|Garden of Remembrance Graves and Mausoleums Image:Rookwood agaves.jpg|Graves overgrown with Agave americana, Araucaria spp. in background Image:Rookwood 3.JPG|Sandstone memorial Image:Rookwood Cemetery 3.JPG|Sandstone monuments Image:Rookwood Family Vault 2.JPG|Family Vault Image:Rookwood Family Vault 1.JPG|John Paul Family Vault Image:Rookwood Family Vault 3.JPG|Frazer Mausoleum File:Frazer Mausoleum in Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney, Australia.jpg|Frazer Mausoleum Image:Rookwood Cemetery Girl Statue.jpg|A small statue near a grave. Buildings Image:Rookwood Crematorium.JPG|Crematorium Image:Rookwood Cemetery 2.JPG|Independent Office Image:Rookwood 2.JPG|Chapel Image:Rookwood 4.JPG|Rotunda References *Historic Rookwood Necropolis published by Strathfield District Historical Society External links * Rookwood Cemetery * Rookwood Independent Cemetery * Friends of Rookwood Inc. Category:Sydney localities Category:Buildings and structures in Sydney Category:Anglican cemeteries Category:Christian Orthodox cemeteries Category:Roman Catholic cemeteries Category:Lutheran cemeteries Category:Jewish cemeteries Category:Protestant Reformed cemeteries Category:Cemeteries in New South Wales Category:James Barnet buildings in Sydney Category:1868 establishments in Australia